The Awakening – Page 7

The Awakening turns 2!

Posted on May 31, 2011 by johnmarkum

This week, two years ago, Edgewood launched it’s first ever Saturday night worship service, “The Awakening.” We had a ton of ideas and dreams, and the opportunity to add a new worship experience to one of the most exciting churches in the Quad Cities. The leadership of Edgewood stood beside us and gave us the chance to begin something that few other churches are willing to take the risk on.

As a result, we have seen God move in incredible ways. We’ve experienced growth in numbers of people coming to Christ, getting baptized, families joining us, and we’re just getting started. The vision to see people far from God awakened with life in Christ beats strong in our hearts and we commit ourselves again to reaching people in the Quad Cities with the Gospel.

Two years have been amazing! Year three… you’ll just have to stick around and see what God does (although I suspect there are some soon-to-be-released posts that will give some hints)!

Join us at Edgewood this Saturday night, 6 pm, for our two year celebration.

To find out more about our Saturday night service, visit our website at www.qcawakening.com

Blessings,

John

Things that make me happy…

Posted on May 31, 2011 by johnmarkum

My wife’s smile.
My kids running to see me when I come home.
Getting to baptize people.
Seeing someone trust God in a big way.
Seeing my leadership team’s passion.
Hearing people in my ministry geek-out over what God is doing.
Cooking for my wife.
Rocking out to some music and drinking Mt. Dew while brainstorming in my office.
Winning at RISK over xbox live.
My kids laughter.

7 Things I Believe about the Next Generation

Posted on May 25, 2011 by johnmarkum

The following is a re-post from the blog of Pastor Perry Noble, the founder and lead pastor of NewSpring Church of Anderson, SC. As a pastor who is concerned about young adults and emerging generations of Christ-followers, I found this post very encouraging. I hope you do as well. Blessings…

I lead a discipleship group of about 10-12 young men and women who are in high school…I’ve done so for the past two years. Here are seven things I believe about the next generation (people who are 20 and younger)…

#1 – The next generation will see one of the greatest awakenings the world has ever seen…I really do believe the Lord is setting them up for it. (Which is why I believe the greatest investment in “missions” that the church can make today is the one to have a dynamic youth and children’s ministry!)

#2 – The way the next generation will view and do church will be different than the way we do it today. They will fully know and comprehend how to reach out to themselves…and our role as a church should be to fund it and not fight it (that line is borrowed from Andy Stanley)!

#3 – The next generation seems to be way more serious about their walk with Jesus than my generation has ever been.

#4 – I believe those of us who are “more mature” (OLDER) should seek out those who are in their teens and listen to their questions and frustrations about life and church without coming down on them. If we will listen and patiently explain things there could be way less tension between generations in the church. Might does not make right. And…the “mature” people should always be the first to step into a relationship with the next generation!

#5 – I fully believe that the next generation has no earthly idea what God wants to do in them and through them…and if we will teach them to be fully surrendered on a daily basis that our children and grandchildren will see God do things we didn’t even think were possible.

#6 – I believe the next generation is not content with borrowing the faith of their parents, they are asking questions and seeking to understand WHAT they believe and WHY they believe it…and them doing that is going to equip them to take the church to the next level (I Peter 3:15).

#7 – I believe the next generation is going to refuse to settle for the way things are…and that as their view of WHO God is begins to increase so will their expectation in regards to what He can do.